Tomorrow I'll Be Air
by KenSan1990
Summary: Everyone has bad luck...including Kaoru. Who would have thought a ragged cello player could make her fell happy by playing just one song? modern, KK Oneshot.


A/N: This was inspired by the song the Kenshin is playing: Bach's Prelude in G major; if not familiar its the same song being played on the cello in the trailer for _The Soloist, _but the entire song...not just the parts that are played, are wonderful.

**Tomorrow I'll be Air**

For a park, a place of relaxation and of enjoyment, Kaoru felt herself to be crammed tightly, boxed in by the world around her. She felt so tight that not even the flowers that were sprinkled about could make her happy. And flowers were just about the only things that seemed to make her happy anymore. She really wasn't aware of why they made her happy. Maybe it was because they wouldn't cheat on her, or lie to her. Maybe it was because they made her at ease, even when she was crying, even when she was sad or depressed. Not this time though. There were too many people around her and she didn't know why. She needed to break away from all of them. She needed to find something else inanimate to confide in until her hysteria went away.

She'd found it without even trying.

She sat down on the edge of a fountain, a few feet away from a man who had a beaten black leather case at his feet. It was a large case, larger than a guitar. She wanted to say it was a cello, but she didn't even look twice. The man was a ragged. His clothes were stained with dirt and his jeans had holes in them. She could smell him from where she was sitting, and she was surprised she was staying there at all.

He opened the case and pulled out the large string instrument. It rested on his shoulder as he fixed his bow, running it across the strings. It made a demonic hiss as he did, as though this man had never touched a cello in his life and had just bought it on a whim. He fiddled around the instrument for a bit, Kaoru feeling like she should get going soon, but then she heard him pull the bow across the strings, producing a sound that she had never quite heard before.

Each note was artful, his bow gliding across the strings, his fingers moving about the neck to produce the different sounds. He was putting on a concert for the birds that lingered to listen, eating the music the same way they would bread crumbs that little old ladies on benches would give them.

Kaoru turned her head to the man, watching him as he moved. He was concentrated, his eyes closed and his head moving to the sound of the cello as it played. His actions made her see him like he was in an audience, like he was a child pretending he was trying to play this instrument and he really had no idea when he was doing, he was just playing.

"Do you like it miss?" she heard him say.

"What?"

"Do you like the music?" he asked quieter, his voice seeming to fluctuate with the tone of the song. Kaoru did like classical music, just as she liked most music, so long as she could listen to it and connect with what she was hearing. The thing about it was, she really didn't know all that much about who he was playing, what he was playing or what notes he was playing. She was a horrible singer, she couldn't read music. She had hardly gotten through playing the recorder when she as in grade school.

"Yes."

"What do you feel?" he asked.

"Feel...what do you mean?"

"What does it make you feel?" he asked, his head turning a bit so he could focus on Kaoru. His eyes were still on the cello, looking at his hands as he moved them about the instrument. "What do you think when you listen, what emotions tingle up your spine?"

"I...I don't know. A lot of them. Mostly...like someone's running through their life and they have no idea where they're going, and there's so much around them that they're confused. But...it's not sad," she said, and even as she said the words she hadn't realized that she had just told this man how she felt in her life, as though it really didn't matter if she told him or not.

"I get the same feeling sometimes," he said, "feeling like you're running in circles, though I don't think this is what the composer meant," he said.

"The composer?"

"Bach," he said. "This is "Prelude in G Major"," he told her surely. "It's one of my favorites, though I can't play too well."

"I think you play beautifully," Kaoru replied. "And what do you mean what the composer wants?"

"Well, the composer writes a peace for a reason, just as a songwriter does. They have this emotion, this image that they want you to see, that they want you to convey into words, or actions."

Kaoru's shoulders drew up. "But...then why listen to music at all?" Kaoru asked. She heard him stop for a moment, only to begin again on the third movement. She had somehow missed him going through the second, but she had heard the third different sounds that seemed to string together. "Why listen to it if you can't see what you want to see?"

"I'm not sure. I want to see love I guess, but I have learned all my life to see what the composer wants you to see."

"That's stupid," Kaoru said. "And what do you mean by love?" she asked curiously. "How do you hear love?"

"I am at a loss of it right now," he replied, "I feel the bliss, and yet there is nothing there, there is something that I have missed and I'm runnig around for it. And I fall down, and I'll get back up again, but I have to fall first right? But then, I'll find this person, and I'll be right back up there again, dancing and laughing and having fun."

Kaoru thought about the movements, and nodded."I can see that too I guess. I'm looking for love as well."

"You've had much more trouble than I, have you not?"

"I can't really say. I just get these, scum and these hardasses and all these...problems. All the lying and the despair thinking...hey one of these guys will be it soon right?" she turned to see his fingers moving along and he was nodding his head. Whether it be to the music or to her she wasn't sure. It didn't matter, she decided it was the latter of the two. She waited for him to play some more, and he continued to speak to her with a light voice and he laughed, all the while his fingers moving about the neck and his bow sliding across the strings.

He finished, and Kaoru looked around to see the same people in the park just walking around, like they'd been walking in circles with nothing else to do with their lives. It was disappointing that no one noticed this man, and all the while his case was open, the velvety bottom bare of anything that anyone might give him. He put the cello in and closed it. He wasn't taking any offers it seemed.

"It was nice to meet you miss," he said. "Should we meet again, is there a name I can call you by?"

"Kaoru. And you?"

"Kenshin. It was nice," he said, shaking her hand and hugging her. Kaoru was surprised at this bold move. "Till another time."

"Should I come back to the park?" she asked in a desperate sort of way.

"No need. I'll be around. You'll know," he said, and walked into a massive crowd that earlier had been smothering her. She was a little looser now, thinking of the music. She turned, and looked back, hoping to see the red hair, but finding that it was gone. She smiled and left.

When she came back the next day, he wasn't there. She sat on that fountain, and looked to the side of her, wondering if he would show up. Wind brushed against her, and despite the cool spring air, it was nice and warm. There was someone whispering her name in her ear, and the wind caressed her body. All the while she felt a sort of ease, listening to the way that the trees moved, and the way people's feet clapped against the pavement on their busy days, like they didn't have enough time to stop and listen to the world, and to see what was beyond themselves; too busy to see what was beyond being bound to the Earthy plane.

She felt something blow up against her ankles, and she picked the paper up. It was 'entertainment' section of a newspaper. She usually didn't read the paper, the same way that she usually didn't read the news.

But she saw something that caught her eye.

There was a picture of an orchestra sitting around, and there he was, his hair slicked back and wearing a nicely tailored suit that cost him much more than Kaoru would think to pay for anything. And he had the cello in his hands. And for a moment, he winked at her from the paper. She blushed. She was going crazy; crazy, and loving every minute of it.

She felt the air against her back. She checked the date of the concert. Why not?

A/N: Simple....this is a oneshot...there will be no more...but I do advise listening to the song. It's really nice,and I'm a hard rocker so...:). Till another time, KenSan out!


End file.
